“The arch media manipulator, says the Daily Mail, “appeared
for a few seconds almost to lose it altogether when he was pressed over
Tony Blair’s evidence to the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war”.

Apparently Campbell was so upset because Tony Blair is actually a “
totally honourable man”. Clearly Campbell is not upset by the FACT that
his own dodgy dossier led to an illegal war and a genocide.

In the run up to the Iraq War, Alastair Campbell was involved in the
preparation and the release of the “September Dossier” (September 2002)
and the “Iraq Dossier” (February 2003). Not before too long, both
documents had been proved to be heavily distorted and detached from
intelligence findings. Subsequent investigations revealed that the
September 2002 Dossier had been altered, on Campbell’s orders, to be
consistent with a speech given by George W. Bush and statements by
other United States officials.

It is noticeable that Blair and Campbell repeat the same shallow
argument. They insist that the decision to launch a war should not be
the subject of legal scrutiny, instead, it should be regarded as a
legitimate decision taken by a person in office. In the minds of these
two Neocons, a state’s leader’s decisions are beyond legal examination.

If this argument is valid then the entire premise of universal
jurisdiction laws is totally futile and even redundant. Politicians and
state leaders can always follow Blair and suggest to us that; ‘being
the person in charge, they did what they thought was the right thing to
do’. Interestingly enough, such an argument could also be used by
Stalin or Hitler. Like Blair they made decisions while being in office.
Like Blair they believed that they were doing the right thing.

If Blair is correct, then there is no ethical or legal argument that
can justify any interventionist war whatsoever. This is good news. We
have to accept that like Blair, other leaders also take decisions while
in office. Saddam, for instance, also made some decisions while in
office. In fact, most of us could easily live without Neocon wars, yet,
Blair cannot. The genocidal man ended his recent Chilcot appearance
calling for another war against Iran. Maybe Blair believes that leaders
are entitled to make up such decisions while in office unless they are
Muslims.

As it happens, out of Blair’s and Campbell’s solipsistic universe,
in the reality we all share together, as many as 1,366,350 Iraqis have
died (so far). They had been murdered in an interventionist criminal
war launched by Blair and Bush who “made a decision” to follow a dodgy
dossier that was outlined by Campbell. In the ethical realm we tend to
share, Campbell and Blair should spend the rest of their lives behind
bars.

Alastair Campbell- Director of Communications and Strategy for the British Prime Minister Tony Blair (1997-2003). [↩]

Gilad Atzmon was born in Israel and served in the Israeli military. He lives in London and is the author of two novels: A Guide to the Perplexed and the recently released My One and Only Love. Atzmon is also one of the most accomplished jazz saxophonists in Europe. He can be reached at: atz@onetel.net.uk. Read other articles by Gilad.